Train hits Richmond barricade: Passengers airborne and injured as terror becomes city’s latest train trouble
THE rail chaos across Sydney has hit its most farcical point after a train failed to stop at the end of the Richmond line and sent passengers hurtling through the air “like Superman”.
NSW
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INVESTIGATORS last night picked through blood-spattered train carriages to find the cause of a horrific rail crash which sent passengers hurtling through the air like rag dolls and plunged Sydney’s embattled network into an even deeper crisis.
Sixteen people were injured — including a 77-year-old woman who suffered a broken collarbone — when the train overran Richmond station in Sydney’s northwest, crashing into an end-of-the-line barricade around 9.50am.
The drama unfolded as the Berejiklian government held emergency talks with the railway union to try to head off strike chaos threatened for next Monday.
READ MORE: Union, state on collision course
Authorities were last night unable to confirm whether yesterday’s accident was the result of a mechanical fault or human error.
The great rail fail: Anatomy of Sydney’s train meltdown
Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who spent four years as Transport Minister, said she had “never seen anything like” the crash and vowed to “get to the bottom” of its cause.
Police said the T1 service was “reportedly slowing to stop” at Richmond station when it hit the barricade with enough force to crumple carriage doorways, rip apart the front of the driver’s carriage and send terrified commuters — many of whom were standing up in preparation to get off — suddenly hurtling through the air.
Fifteen ambulances and three helicopters rushed to the scene, with patients taken to four hospitals — four to Westmead Hospital, five to Blacktown hospital, four to Nepean Hospital and two to Hawkesbury Hospital.
The driver, who an emergency services source described as “absolutely stunned” after the impact, also received treatment at Blacktown Hospital.
Blaxlands Ridge resident Peggy Case, 56, was taken to Nepean Hospital with a head wound and gash on her arm that required seven stitches.
Her husband, who recently had cardiac surgery, remains at the hospital with injuries to his ribs and neck.
“We were coming down (the trains steps) and then next minute — bang. And then we went flying,” she said.
Passenger Bailey Hope, 14, filmed the footage on his phone after he hit his head while travelling in from Windsor to see friends.
“I was sitting on the train and it started to speed up. Apparently the brakes stopped.
“I (have) seen blood everywhere. People on the ground.”
Jaiden Ruttley, who also filmed the crash’s aftermath, said he thought he was going to die and described bodies “flying around like Superman”.
NSW Ambulance incident commander, Superintendent Paul Turner, said the crash victims were extremely lucky. “It was chaos, things could’ve been much worse,” he said.
A Sydney Trains spokesman said the Waratah train that was involved in the crash was “among the safest trains in the fleet”.
Sydney Trains boss Howard Collins said it was too early to speculate on the cause but, from what he had seen, the buffer stop worked by preventing the train from derailing.
Transport Minister Andrew Constance said investigators from the Office of Transport Safety Investigators, the Office of National Rail Safety Regulator and Safe Work NSW would start work immediately.
— additional reporting
Danielle Gusmaroli